PPV piracy

[bmagana]

Last night, i went to a piracy website to watch a major pay per view sporting event to avoid paying $100 dollars, i did it with full knowledge it was wrong and sinful, but i didn’t think it was a big deal, but now that i reflect on it, i am worried i might have committed Mortal Sin, i want to know if i can receive holy commuion at Mass today, please advice.

 

[edward_george]

It’s not helpful to ask these sorts of questions on an internet forum, particularly if you struggle with scrupulosity. I would advise mentioning it to your priest in confession and following his guidance. Here you’re going to get a variety of responses from people who may or may not be qualified to answer your question well, and it will only lead to further confusion.

-Fr ACEGC

 

[JamalChristophr]

Doing what you described is not a grave matter, and so it is not a mortal sin. It’s a venial sin.

 

[upant]

asking the forum isn’t something i’d bet my soul on?

isn’t it considered stealing when you pirate something? i ask because i know people who have no qualms about doing it and going to church on sunday without guilt.

a $100 item isn’t quite like a $0.99 song.

abstain until you feel right with GOD. go to confession

 

[joeybaggz]

Doing what you described is not a grave matter, and so it is not a mortal sin. It’s a venial sin.

On the other hand, taking something that costs $100.00 is stealing, and it is a grave matter.
Just said that to show the first answer, talk to a priest about this is the best answer you can get. You might get a lot of contradictory opinions that would not really give a clear answer to your question. Follow that posters advice. Talk to a qualified priest.

Shalom

 

[upant]

Doing what you described is not a grave matter, and so it is not a mortal sin. It’s a venial sin.

$100 buck theft isn’t grave matter? cool, if only i had known before i bought that new program i needed. what pirate site was that?

 

[JamalChristophr]

Well…at least i stimulated some responses…

I do need to reread what the catechism and other books say on determining “grave matter”.

I did just come across a Jimmy Akin article on grave matter that seems pretty decent. In it, he says…

***A classic example is that of theft. If you steal a dollar from a millionnaire, it isn’t grave matter because he has plenty of money and the loss of a dollar will not gravely harm him. On the other hand, stealing a dollar from a beggar in the streets of Calcutta, who needs that dollar to survive, would indeed be grave matter, because it does grave harm to the individual.

---

jimmyakin.com/2007/01/grave_matter.html

Just as a side note, maybe most of all to myself and then to others, we tend to discount venial sins a lot, thinking they are not really a big deal.

 

[JamalChristophr]

Here is a link to the CCC on sin which covers the topic, but which may not provide an all together thorough answer to separating out what constitutes “grave matter”.

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a8.htm

Reading through all the paragraphs seems to leave me somewhat undecided in regards to complete clarity, but I still lean towards my original thesis.

Yes, I know, many will say, just go to confession, which is the most pragmatic answer to the question.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

I cannot believe that anyone would have paid 100 dollars to see that staged “fight” but that is just my opinion, perhaps irrelevant here.

 

[twf]

$100 buck theft isn’t grave matter? cool, if only i had known before i bought that new program i needed. what pirate site was that?

No material object was taken from a limited supply. Intellectual content was illicitly enjoyed without paying $100 to a wealthy corporation. Sinful to be sure… but I can’t imagine it being grave matter. Was grave harm done to the large corporation?

 

[NonTimendum]

Last night, i went to a piracy website to watch a major pay per view sporting event to avoid paying $100 dollars, i did it with full knowledge it was wrong and sinful, but i didn’t think it was a big deal, but now that i reflect on it, i am worried i might have committed Mortal Sin, i want to know if i can receive holy commuion at Mass today, please advice.

So you stole $100 and are now compounding the theft by not showing even a hint of remorse but trying to find out if you can legalese your way into venial sin, thus implying enough malice that if it was promised to only be venial, you’d do it again?

I’d say your in mortal sin, but the fact that I actually paid for the product in question might be coloring my response here.

Oh wait, some guy named Jimmy Akin said it was okay? Oh well I guess you’re good then.

Edit: I’m not trying to be mean here but think about it this way;

Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather both risked their lives last night. People die in boxing, or get permanently injured. A big part of their pay comes from PPV. The health of both the UFC and Boxing depend on PPV. Tens of thousands of people probably illegally streamed that last night, which means they robbed those two brave men of a lot of money.

It was wrong, you knew it was wrong, and I think it’s better to be more concerned with the fact that you did it at all knowing it was wrong than to worry about whether it was “wrong enough” to merit punishment. We’re supposed to hate ALL sin with all of our heart.

 

[KevinAK]

So you stole $100 and are now compounding the theft by not showing even a hint of remorse but trying to find out if you can legalese your way into venial sin, thus implying enough malice that if it was promised to only be venial, you’d do it again?

I’d say your in mortal sin, but the fact that I actually paid for the product in question might be coloring my response here.

Oh wait, some guy named Jimmy Akin said it was okay? Oh well I guess you’re good then.

Edit: I’m not trying to be mean here but think about it this way;

Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather both risked their lives last night. People die in boxing, or get permanently injured. A big part of their pay comes from PPV. The health of both the UFC and Boxing depend on PPV. Tens of thousands of people probably illegally streamed that last night, which means they robbed those two brave men of a lot of money.

It was wrong, you knew it was wrong, and I think it’s better to be more concerned with the fact that you did it at all knowing it was wrong than to worry about whether it was “wrong enough” to merit punishment. We’re supposed to hate ALL sin with all of our heart.

People risk their lived everyday just by stepping out their door. That argument is completely irrelevant to whether what the OP did was right or wrong.

 

[twf]

So you stole $100 and are now compounding the theft by not showing even a hint of remorse but trying to find out if you can legalese your way into venial sin, thus implying enough malice that if it was promised to only be venial, you’d do it again?

I’d say your in mortal sin, but the fact that I actually paid for the product in question might be coloring my response here.

Oh wait, some guy named Jimmy Akin said it was okay? Oh well I guess you’re good then.

Edit: I’m not trying to be mean here but think about it this way;

Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather both risked their lives last night. People die in boxing, or get permanently injured. A big part of their pay comes from PPV. The health of both the UFC and Boxing depend on PPV. Tens of thousands of people probably illegally streamed that last night, which means they robbed those two brave men of a lot of money.

It was wrong, you knew it was wrong, and I think it’s better to be more concerned with the fact that you did it at all knowing it was wrong than to worry about whether it was “wrong enough” to merit punishment. We’re supposed to hate ALL sin with all of our heart.

Your post is inappropriate and blowing things completely out of proportion.
They freely choose to endanger themselves for profit… that is neither here nor there.

 

[NonTimendum]

Your post is inappropriate and blowing things completely out of proportion.
They freely choose to endanger themselves for profit… that is neither here nor there.

Well it is his soul, so he can steal whatever he wants.

I see, so now if I choose to do a dangerous job my boss can steal my wages because I “chose to endanger myself for profit.” Because for some reason stealing becomes okay when the dangerous job is chosen???

People risk their lived everyday just by stepping out their door. That argument is completely irrelevant to whether what the OP did was right or wrong.

Wait… So now stealing is right because life carries a certain baseline risk?

You guys are really making very little sense here.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Doing what you described is not a grave matter, and so it is not a mortal sin. It’s a venial sin.

Really? If you are wrong in your declaration are you willing to stand in front of God and take the place of the person you think has no grave matter here

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Last night, i went to a piracy website to watch a major pay per view sporting event to avoid paying $100 dollars, i did it with full knowledge it was wrong and sinful, but i didn’t think it was a big deal, but now that i reflect on it, i am worried i might have committed Mortal Sin, i want to know if i can receive holy commuion at Mass today, please advice.

Stealing 100 dollars worth of product is not good. If it was in a grocery store in my state you would go to jail and if you planned to do it, you would be convicted of a felony.

 

[JamalChristophr]

Really? If you are wrong in your declaration are you willing to stand in front of God and take the place of the person you think has no grave matter here

It’s a good point

Really, I would like to hear how a priest would answer this question. I remember when I used to watch EWTN there would be “Web of Faith”. Fr Levis and Fr. Trugillio were pretty informative and gave pretty clear cut answers to peoples questions, such as this, that did not beat around the bush.

To add one more thing, I remember the simple axiom that if you are at the point of wondering if something you did might be a mortal sin, then you should abstain from communion and go to confession. (I think that’s right, how I remember it, anyways.j)

 

[bmagana]

I abstained from receiving communion for fear of being unworthy and making things worse, i learned my lesson, i will go to confession as soon as possible, and i won’t make that same mistake again, next time i’ll either pay, or not watch at all. Thanks to everyone for their (name removed by moderator)ut. I just need a favor from you all, please pray a Hail Mary for me. Thanks and God Bless

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

I abstained from receiving communion for fear of being unworthy and making things worse, i learned my lesson, i will go to confession as soon as possible, and i won’t make that same mistake again, next time i’ll either pay, or not watch at all. Thanks to everyone for their (name removed by moderator)ut. I just need a favor from you all, please pray a Hail Mary for me. Thanks and God Bless

This is a very good post. Regaurdless of what “we would have done” you formed your own conscience and followed it. That shows not only being contrite, but a form of understanding of sin and the Eucharist. Good luck in confession!

 

[mikekle]

So you stole $100 and are now compounding the theft by not showing even a hint of remorse but trying to find out if you can legalese your way into venial sin, thus implying enough malice that if it was promised to only be venial, you’d do it again?

I’d say your in mortal sin, but the fact that I actually paid for the product in question might be coloring my response here.

Oh wait, some guy named Jimmy Akin said it was okay? Oh well I guess you’re good then.

Edit: I’m not trying to be mean here but think about it this way;

Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather both risked their lives last night. People die in boxing, or get permanently injured. A big part of their pay comes from PPV. The health of both the UFC and Boxing depend on PPV. Tens of thousands of people probably illegally streamed that last night, which means they robbed those two brave men of a lot of money.

It was wrong, you knew it was wrong, and I think it’s better to be more concerned with the fact that you did it at all knowing it was wrong than to worry about whether it was “wrong enough” to merit punishment. We’re supposed to hate ALL sin with all of our heart.

Absolutely false, neither Floyd or Conor lost any money due to any piracy of the fight, they both had well defined contracts that stated how much they were going to receive before the fight even happened, so even if 5 million people went to the piracy site, their pay would have remained exactly the same.

Not to mention these kinds of things are factored in long before events happen when they set the price, the company airing it, the advertisers, and all the different groups involved know what to expect in terms of roughly how many people will see it illegally, NO ONE actually lost any money due to this, in fact they all made out like bandits.

Its kind of like retail shoplifting, I work for a very large gas station/ convenience store chain, they took a look at the numbers relating to shoplifting in all their stores and found its effect on the profit margin was so small and insignificant, they actually changed store policy on dealing with shoplifters (we just ignore it for the most part now).